Well, since in this section there are many times the same question, I decided to do a "F.A.Q." to keep the best information grouped.
I will try to do my best, if you have suggestion,please share them.
Don't use this topic for doubts.

Hardware Questions both for Notebooks and Desktops:

What mac do I have?

You can check you machine specs using the system profiler: apple logo=>about this mac=>more info.
graphic made by simsaladimbamba

If your mac doesn't boot to MacOS, you can check up by its serial number, using this website.

What is the maximum Ram that my mac can take? and wich ram it is? and where do I buy it?

The maximum ram that your mac can take and it's type is given on everymac.com or using the application mactracker, if you search by your model.

Be sure that the ram that you buy is low density.

Ram can be bought on several places, but the best bet is crucial (for new ram).
For used ram/lower prices check ebay, there are many people selling ram pulled out from working macs, or even oem ram proved to work in mac (low density ram, check the feedback of the seller. Remember, high density RAM is cheaper than low density ram, so if a user is selling mac ram at higher prices, maybe he is not fooling you).

What is the maximum HDD that my mac can take? and wich type it is? and where do I buy it?

Well, one more time you can check everymac.com or mactracker to know what type of hdd do your mac take, if it is IDE or SATA, 2.5' (laptop) or 3.5' (desktop).

Some macs have a 128Gb limit on the "onboard Ide", I don't know about notebooks, but the list of desktop computers are here:

Reboot or Power up your Cube
Hold down Command + Option + O + F simultaneously as soon as the reboot starts.
You should now be at the Open Firmware prompt. Note that this is NOT the BASH prompt, so don’t try anything here.

Type in the following, exactly. Please note that the Underscore “_” is used to indicate a space.
nvedit
dev_hd
dev_..
"_"_"_lba-48"_property
device-end
Press Ctrl+C to exit from nvedit.
nvstore
setenv_use-nvramrc?_true
reset-all
That’s it. Now boot up and go to “About My Mac” to confirm the disk size.

If your disk was already formatted, it will have its original 128Gb partition and a region of inaccessible space at the end. It’s probably easiest to reformat the disk with a new partition scheme, unless you have some terminal disk utility or related tricks up your sleeve.

This hack will last until you reset the NV RAM (P RAM).
Similarly, if you hose your open firmware settings, use this fact to your advantage, perform a PRAM reset and start again.
If you do repartition the disk, it’s probably wise not to cross the 128Gb boundary with a partition, in case you ever have to reset the NV RAM, in which case you’ll only be able to access the first 128Gb of the the hard-disk. By splitting the disk at 128Gb, you’ll ensure that only whole partitions are visible and any partition after the 128Gb will be entirely invisible.

3)SATA/IDE - PCi cards- this go for 60-80 dollars, and can be found on OWC, ebay and maybe other stores.

I have IDE type hdds on my mac, but they are becoming scarce and the prices are becoming higher, is there a solution?

If you have a laptop, or a desktop with limited size for hdd, guess you have to stay with IDE hdds.
For those who have plenty of space (powermacs for example), you can use sata HDD's with SATA to IDE converter. They are available from ebay at something 3euros shipping included, or 40eur in other stores. It's up to you, guess you wouldn't notice any difference

I heard about SSD's,can I have one in my mac? it only has IDE ports

Most ssd's are available only with SATA interface, although as covered before if you have a desktop, you can either use the SATA to IDE converter or a SATA to pci card.
For Laptop users there are only two options:
1) IDE ssds - they are scarce but they exist! OWC has a high variety of sizes and there is the 32Gb Transcend.

2) Compact Flash (CF Cards) - CF cards are like "mini ssds", although the performance is worse than a good ssd, it benefits from the "almost zero miliseconds" time acess.
The CF cards can be used through adapters (to desktop 40 pin IDE (desktop) or 44pin IDE (laptop) available on ebay for something like 3/4eur),these adapters can take one or two cfs.
Because of the size, cf cards can fit on laptops with the adapters.
CF Cards are good alternatives to people who don't need much space (32Gb of a good CF (2x16Gb 400x or more) is almost the same price of an IDE SSD) but want more speed, less noise/vibration (the problem of high speed 7200rpm HDD's in laptops) and a little more battery.
Don't buy a CF with speed less than 233/266x, it will be very slow.

My mac only has a CD-Reader, I want to put a DVD, where do I buy them?

In this part I don't have sure, but I guess you use any ordinary pc optical drive, if you then use patchburn.
If you don't want to risk, search for mac compatible drives.

Can I upgrade my processor?

Laptops - I don't have great info about this, but I guess only the powerbook g3 allowed processor upgrades (check OWC site, Sonnet, Gigadesign, Lowendmac.com for more info) although be aware that a faster processor will probably produce more heat and consume more battery.*Under construction*

Desktops - g3's, g4's do have processor upgrades,either swap from newer machines to older (for example, the dual g4 500MHz fit in some Sawtooth (it has to have a Uni-N revision 7 chipset).CPU Upgrades Reviews Here
OWC has a high range of cpu upgrades,although you can find it on ebay too.

G5's don't have processor upgrades.

*Under construction*

Can I upgrade my Powerpc processor to an intel one?

Short Answer: NO

Long Answer: the most that you can do, is taking all powerpc stuff inside your case and put there and "hackintosh".That will take you time,and some do-it-yourself.

2)USB-Type Wifi Cards - this in my opinion is one of the easiest/cheapest ways of adding wifi to a mac. A 300MBps N Wifi usb adapter can be bought for less than 20eur.

2.1)Branded Cards - Conceptronics (for example SMCWUSBS-N3), Some Asus, etc..best bet, if it doesn't have mac drivers, try to know wich chip does it use, then go to the chip maker webpage and see if it has drivers for mac. For example,most of the cards today use ralink chips, most of them have mac drivers, although vendors don't say so.
​

2.2)Non-Brand Cards - ebay,just do the same thing that I said for branded cards (you can ask the seller too),will appear good examples like this ones:
​

3.1)Native PCI Wifi Cards - one more time, search for the ones with chips that have drivers for mac, for example Realtek, Ralink.
I saw a Conceptronic 300Mbps C300Ri V3 card for cheap on a store, downloaded windows drivers, and saw RT2860 (ralink chip), although when I bough it, the chip on the card was RT3062 wich doesn't have mac drivers on site...I tried the rt2860 drivers,and it worked!
One more time, a search on ebay, will give you 300Mbps PCI Cards for about 20eur with mac drivers like this one (realtek):
[URL="​

For those who don't any slots for bluetooth, the only option that I am aware are usb bluetooth dongles.
If you a branded dongle, search for anything with broadcom chip (TRUST uses them for example), or again OWC.
If you want the cheapest, you have a 5 dollar one here and I think the ones available @99pence on ebay are the same as that one (I ordered one to see!)

For those who have slots for original apple bluetooth cards, just search on ebay for them, or take a look here then here (adding bluetooth to a G5).
If you have another machine take a look @ifixit to know how to put it.

Which webcam should I buy to use with my Mac?

Of course you buy an use an Apple iSight, but they still have high prices compared to "pc" webcams.
In this site and on the logitech site you can find mac compatible webcams.
Other option is to use the Macam Driver with your webcam (or one in the list of compatible webcams)

Most of the hardware covered before can be applied both to desktops (even those "laptop like" (imac,emac). This section will only cover the missing hardware modifications to desktop mac (powermacs).

Can I change my graphic card?

Yes, you have three options:

1)Buy a real mac card - with this one everything will work as it should, although you pay premium price for them. You can find them new on owc and sometimes on ebay.

2)Buy a PC Card already modded/flashed for mac - if you don't know anything about flashing, modding cards, but still don't want to pay the premium prices of Mac cards, this option is for you.
Be aware that you may have sleep issues or so, and when buying the card, tell the seller wich mac you have!
On ebay you will find lots of this cards, ati 9800, geforce 6200, 6800, etc..I heard about this guy that sells some cards and there are more like him, specially in the strangedogs forum

3)Buy a PC Card, and turn it into a Mac card - If you know something about flashing/modding, and think that 90dollars for used and flashed ATi 9800pro is too much (truth is that they can be bought used for 30/40eur) this is for you.
Lots of reading of The Mac Elite Wiki and the strangedogs forum will help you do it!
Don't rush the process, and one more time,read everything carefully.
Be aware of each model problems.

My PPC Mac Desktop is dead, I guess it is the power supply,but even used ones are too pricey, what can I do?

At least for some G3's and G4's you can mod an ordinary-easy to find-cheap to buy ATX power supply to work with it, here are some usefull links:

Remember, the power supply is the hear of your system, go for a good brand (for stock g4's and g3's you don't need top notch power supplys, but something as LC Power should be fine in terms of stability and price)

My Powermac has a busted fan, how do I know if the new fan has the same cfm (or more) of the old one?Here you have a list of fans used in powermacs, you can always compare.

Hardware - Laptops and Desktops (emac,imac)

This section will only cover the missing hardware modifications to laptop macs and iMacs and eMacs

You can use Coconut Battery.
It can show you the number of cycles and the health of the battery.
Be aware that sometimes an "healthy" battery on coconut doesn't mean you are going to have a good experience with your battery.
My Ibook G3 showed 92% health, although it lasted me 1h, and when it was on 30% it shutdown.

This info is available on everymac.com or mactracker.
For those who like to "hack", and get a newer version of MacOS on it's unsupported mac, there is Leopard Assist and xpostfacto.
Other option is installing the MacOS X version you want in a supported machine,then use carbon copy cloner to clone it to the machine HDD.
I did this for my powermac g4..using my macbook!it worked fine!See more about this here.

Can I run MacOS 10.6/10.7/10.8 on my powerpc mac?

No

Can I have iCloud on my powerpc mac?

No.iCloud Requires 10.7.2.
Althought some people claim to have synced iCal and Adressbook in unsupported system using tutorials like this one and this one.
If you have mobileme DON'T UPGRADE! I learned the hard way.No "apple" sync with my powermac.Using google now.

What Cloud services have clients that will run on my powerpc mac?

1) Dropbox - 10.4+
2) Sugarsync - you have to use version 1.9.42 for powerpc 10.4+.
3) CXSync - 10.5 only,using a legacy version.
4) Spideroak - from my searches I've found that there is an old version that works on 10.4+ powerpcs, but I mailed them.

Are there any software tweaks that I can make to make my experience better?

Before installing MacOS: install only the languages that you need,along with extras/drivers.

After installling MacOS: update it, uninstall the current version of flash with the uninstaller available here and install the latest version of flash available wich is 10.1.102.64 available here.

See the section "Youtube is slow as hell,any tips?" for more info/tweaks about flash.

In terms of office suite,the recent LibreOffice has the latest version por PPC in all languages (for example,openoffice only had old versions for ppc-portuguese) and it is free.
There are more free office suites based on openoffice, I will cover them later.

If you want a paid one, the latest you can have are:
Office 2008 - for 10.4+
iWork 09 - for 10.4+

I have a low spec powerpc mac,the MacOS versions that it run wouldn't serve me well,what do I do?

Well, it's a fact that older versions of MacOS don't benefit of updates in some areas as java, browsers, etc...and some people just need those to make some necessary task.
As a low end spec mac will not run/run bad a up to date MacOS,the best bet is linux.
Go to the Linux part of this F.A.Q. to know more about linux.

I'm forced to run a MacOS X lower than 10.5, what can I do to backup it like Time Machine does?

Well there are lots of them, the most famous are VLC ,coreplayer (paid but claimed to be one of the best performing media players for powerpc, you can use discount code: MBHD20), Miro, Movist ,Perian, XBMC and MPlayer, andhere you can find a tweaked version of it claimed to be one of the best players for G4 (and maybe others too).

Do yourself a favor a take a good read on This article by our friend zen.state.
Other good threads to read are this one and this.

I have a phone that I want to connect/send sms/sync with my powerpc, how can I do it?

First of all, see in the manufacter support page if you phone has a suite for mac, or an isync plugin.
Some Nokias and most Sony Ericssons do.If not you can try googling about it (Sometimes people do isync plugins, and there are the paid Novamedia ones.
Other options (not only to sync but to send sms,make calls,etc) are this programs:

BluePhoneElite - you can download it and try for 14days, since it isn't available to buy, contact the owner or use google for the complete version.

MegaCellX - MegaCellX is shareware, so you can try the software before to buy it with some limitations. In order to eliminate the limitations it is necessary to buy it.

GSMRemote - This application is shareware (US $10). You can give it a time-unlimited test drive.

In the past I used bluephoneelite sucessfully with Nokia E51,E52 and others.And the others were the ones compatible with my black and white phones such as the siemens SL45i.

Well you have a very good list here wich say if the games are powerpc,intel or both.
But do yourself a favor, search for "games" on powerpc forum,only titles, you will find some free/opensource games that will entertain you.
You can try macintosh garden, there are lots of games there.

My computer is having problems, I don't have the original cds, how do I check the hardware?

Well, every Apple computer has an Apple Hardware Test (AHT) Cd that comes with it.
SInce you don't have it, download it here , burn it to a cd, and run it.If possible in loops to test further.
If it doesn't report any error, it doesn't mean you don't have hardware problems, but it is unlikely that you have.
If you suspect that your problem is a faulty memory, use Rember to test it.

Oh and remember, reseting PRAM and NVRAM as stated here can solve a lot of problems.

After running this ones, running Onyx or disk utility to fix permissions or a fresh install is a good idea.

I want to put an SSD, what are the optimizations that can be made?
Read here

Guess it all depends on a bunch of thing: wich mac it is, what it is going to be used for, what software/hardware do you have/need.

example - someone has maxed out (ram and hdd) powermac g4 gigabit ethernet and uses it for photo editing,and has all the software bought for it (and it won't work on intel),guess it is worth spending 200/300eur on a used cpu upgrade.
If the upgrade value is about 600eur,maybe it is better to switch to better powermac (g5 for example) (I guess that "pro" software costs a fortune).

I have to buy a desktop Mac,should it be and intel or a powerpc?

example 2 - someone has about 800eur to blow on a mac.The use is going to be surfing web,and ocasional photo editing,what is better?new mac mini or good powermac g5 quad?
Guess the mac mini will be a better choice,adobe will not upgrade flash for powerpcs,and with the mac mini you have a whole possibilities of new software.

I have a powerpc computer, what do I do with it?
For god sake, use search!
Here you are, millions of thread with millions of suggestions for your old,not so old, trashed, not trashed, given, not give POWERPC Mac:

I've heard that linux is only for CLI type guys and that you must spend about a whole day to set it up, is that true?

Of Course not.There are lot of things you can do using CLI/Terminal, it is one of the most powerful "apps" in an operative system, but these days is linux can be very user friendly (in distros like ubuntu,lubuntu,mintppc e somehow debian too).
Setting up linux nowadays can be somehow easy, there are lots of tutorials, lots of info, but nothing better than to try.

Why should I try it?

If you don't want, don't try it.Don't blame it if you don't want to spend a little time searching and trying.
But if you want to use powerpc securelly and have new versions of apps, linux is your only bet.
There are even apps that don't have mac powerpc version but do have linux powerpc version (texlive,librecad ,etc)

Where should I search for simple and forwarding info about installing and living with linux?

Can I run MacOS 10.6 Snow Leopard on my powerpc mac?and the upcoming Lion?

Short Answer: No
Long ANswer: There is a guy on internet saying and posting a video about that.the description is here along with video links.

Click to expand...

It's pretty clear that guy is lying. He's just modified the 'about this mac' identity and changed the desktop wallpaper.

- He claims his 400mhz G4 is emulating a dual-core processor and an nvidia gpu with 'Q'.
- In the videos, the frontrow gui is much faster than would be possible on his G4.
- He made a post a couple of months before about modifying 'about this mac'.
- His videos are suspiciously void of any proof whatsoever.
- But most of all, you can tell he's lying by his strange attitude in his posts.

It's impossible to run Snow leopard on a powerPC and even if it was possible to do so through emulation, it would be completely impractical. No offence, but I think you may as well remove your reference to that guy. It's only giving him attention.

It's pretty clear that guy is lying. He's just modified the 'about this mac' identity and changed the desktop wallpaper.

- He claims his 400mhz G4 is emulating a dual-core processor and an nvidia gpu with 'Q'.
- In the videos, the frontrow gui is much faster than would be possible on his G4.
- He made a post a couple of months before about modifying 'about this mac'.
- His videos are suspiciously void of any proof whatsoever.
- But most of all, you can tell he's lying by his strange attitude in his posts.

It's impossible to run Snow leopard on a powerPC and even if it was possible to do so through emulation, it would be completely impractical. No offence, but I think you may as well remove your reference to that guy. It's only giving him attention.

Click to expand...

Thanks
I thought that thw whole thing could be made up,but I've already seen many strange things in the "pc" world (like an Athlon XP with an "evil" bios modded bios beating an Athlon 64 in benchmarks) so it wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing worked.
But I removed it already

Well Guys,I updated the "browser" part,added OmniWeb Browser and the "PCI Wifi" part, now I cant tell for sure that the Conceptronic C300Ri V3 Card works with powerpc macs with the ralink RT2860 Driver Wifi 300N to my powermac

example 2 - someone has about 800eur to blow on a mac.The use is going to be surfing web,and ocasional photo editing,what is better?new mac mini or good powermac g5 quad?
Guess the mac mini will be a better choice,adobe will not upgrade flash for powerpcs,and with the mac mini you have a whole possibilities of new software.

Click to expand...

Even apart from this, the Mini is faster for everything and uses far less power.

though one can easily (mis-)understand it the way I understood it, member zen.state recently told me, that I interpreted the text wrong. It seems that apple wants to say, that if you have a Mac without the 128GB limit, you have to install 10.2.8 or higher or 9.2.2 (with 200GB partitions)!

though one can easily (mis-)understand it the way I understood it, member zen.state recently told me, that I interpreted the text wrong. It seems that apple wants to say, that if you have a Mac without the 128GB limit, you have to install 10.2.8 or higher or 9.2.2 (with 200GB partitions)!

Sorry, for spreading sh**

Click to expand...

No problem people are always learning
Hope this FAQ becames usefull for powerpc users..any info that you have just say and I'll add it

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